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After China’s warning, Pakistan threatens Afghanistan-based TTP with drone strikes

 

 

 

Tom Hussain

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Pakistan is gearing up for a new chapter in its shadow war with Taliban insurgents, vowing a barrage of retaliatory air strikes across the border into Afghanistan.

 

Stung by a surge of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacks in recent months, Pakistan’s defence chief Khawaja Mohammed Asif has put the militant group on notice.

 

“We won’t serve them with cake and pastries. If attacked, we’ll attack back,” he said on Tuesday in a BBC interview, publicly acknowledging for the first time Pakistan’s responsibility for a handful of previously unclaimed drone strikes on TTP camps in Afghanistan dating back to 2021.

 

But before it unleashes its drones again, Islamabad must first overcome widespread public opposition to its counterterrorism campaign – especially in the border regions, which will bear the brunt of any flare-up of fighting.

 

Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), locals dread being displaced en masse in a grim repeat of 2007 to 2016 – the last time the military clashed with the TTP – when tanks, artillery and warplanes reduced their homes and livelihoods to rubble.

 

 

 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office has repeatedly tried to calm fears about a devastating military operation. Sharif and Defence Minister Asif insist large-scale offensives won’t be necessary this time around. Unlike before, they claim the TTP no longer holds territory or operates “no-go zones” within Pakistan.

 

Instead, officials say the counterterrorism push will centre on a surge in targeted, intelligence-driven operations. They’ve sought to assure political parties and the public that their concerns about a destructive campaign are unfounded.

 

But politicians based in KP have ridiculed the claims. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the country’s largest religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, pointed out last week that even police in southern parts of the province, far from the Afghan border, fear for their lives and have stopped working after dark.

 

Inland districts like Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu – both military command centres – have seen increasingly brazen TTP activity, he said, describing daytime patrols, road checkpoints, and the militant group extorting tolls from motorists in these areas.

 

“It’s so disappointing to see the ministers telling brazen lies in regard to the no-go areas,” said Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator from KP and senior member of the left-wing National Democratic Movement.

 

“Actually, the TTP, which is part and parcel of the Afghan Taliban structure on both sides of the Durand Line [Afghanistan-Pakistan border], has expanded its presence to the majority of districts” in KP, he told This Week In Asia.

 

The tribal districts along the Afghanistan border, as well as the southern districts including Dera Ismail Khan and the northern Dir and Swat districts, are where the “situation is the worst”, he said.

 

“Misleading statements by the ministers further dent the already weak credibility of the government,” Khattak said.

 

 

 

The abrupt, unilateral unveiling of the new military operation, dubbed Resolve for Stability, on June 22 without prior consultation was at least partly responsible for the ensuing uproar.

 

Opposition parties in KP and neighbouring Balochistan, which has grappled with a separate secular separatist insurgency for decades, have blamed the military-led “Establishment” for the decision. The Establishment has directly ruled Pakistan for half of its 78-year history and continues to dominate policymaking under the country’s weak “hybrid” democratic system.

 

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, imprisoned for corruption stemming from his feud with military leaders, had dismissed any attempt to address terrorism through “military invasions against our own people” as futile and destabilising.

 

 

 

Suspicions about the government’s motives were further stoked by the timing of the June 22 announcement – coming just a day after Chinese minister Liu Jianchao warned that further belt and road investment hinged on Pakistan dramatically improving its security environment.

 

“As people often say, confidence is more precious than gold,” said Liu, who heads the Communist Party’s international liaison department, its diplomatic arm. “In the case of Pakistan, the primary factor shaking the confidence of Chinese investors is the security situation.”

 

Attacks by the TTP and Baloch militants on Chinese projects and nationals were certainly a “catalyst” for Pakistan’s new operation, according to security analyst Iftikhar Firdous. But he dismissed claims that Chinese anger and investment concerns were the sole drivers.

 

“There is more at stake for Pakistan,” said Firdous, editor-in-chief of security news site The Khorasan Diary. He viewed the announcement after the Chinese minister’s visit as a “symbolic gesture” to safeguard Pakistan’s ties with Beijing.

 

Despite threats of more air strikes on TTP targets in Afghanistan, Firdous said Pakistan’s back-door diplomacy with the Taliban regime has “not been stalled”. Instead, Islamabad is using a mix of diplomacy and military pressure to deny the TTP operational space, amid China-backed efforts to work with Kabul on how to “contain” the group.

 

Central to these negotiations is a “pilot project” to have the Afghan Taliban relocate some TTP fighters away from the border. “There is an understanding in Islamabad that the entirety of the [Pakistani] relationship with the Afghan Taliban cannot be compromised over the TTP,” Firdous said.

 

Former senator Khattak blamed Pakistan’s decades-old policy of “using extremism and religious militancy as tools” against Afghanistan and India for the country’s security challenges. He said these “same tools” were also used for “political engineering and domination” within Pakistan.

 

Khattak noted that it was mainly Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, who had been “at the receiving end of this devastating policy”. Previous Pakistani military operations had pushed the TTP into Afghanistan where they helped with the Taliban’s 2021 takeover, he said.

 

 

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Five Chinese engineers killed in suicide bomb attack in Pakistan

Five Chinese engineers killed in suicide bomb attack in Pakistan

 

 

Public opposition has grown due to the TTP’s subsequent resurgence, which Khattak said was exacerbated by a 2022 attempt to resettle fighters in their home districts as part of a Taliban-mediated truce. He said the public in KP has learned these operations lead to the “expansion”, not contraction, of terrorism.

 

Security analyst Firdous said there was an “overt realisation” in the Pakistani security establishment that past policies had “backfired”. However, Islamabad’s options are limited by the burden of its historical policy decisions and strained regional relationships, he said.

 

Pakistan has lobbied the US to resume military aid that was cut in 2018 over Islamabad’s reluctance to crack down on militants, but without success.

 

“Pakistan finds itself in a tough spot,” Firdous said. “It can only plan foreign policy decisions, but cannot control its surroundings.”